By Matia Samuel Timatio
The authorities in Western Equatoria State – Yambio, have nullified and rubbished media reports on what they termed as baseless allegations about the 50 teenage girls who were reported to have raped a 15 years old boy over the weekend in Yambio town.
The Western Equatoria State Minister of Information and Communications, Murusal Isaac said, there is a group of 50 girls between the age bracket of, 13 to 16 years old that were caught in the habit of drug abuse like Tramol, boozing alcohol, and smoking.
The minister stated that the State government has taken note of the indiscipline teenage girls, and has launched operations against the act.
He added that 18 of those gang girls were arrested and are currently under police investigation.
The Minister said there is a critical analysis while the other 32 girls are still in disperse. He said that, they suspected that there is a boy among them which created suspicion within the public.
There has been news trending on social media and main media outlets that police in Western Equatoria state have detained 18 teenage girls for allegedly hunting men down for sex and were apprehended after allegedly raping a young man in Massia residential area on Sunday who was rushed to the hospital but later escaped after sobering up.
However, reacting to the trending media reports and social media rumors, the State Minister of Gender, Child and Social Welfare in Western Equatoria State Anigunde Cicilia Bii dismissed the viral alleged media reports terming it baseless information.
“There is no kind of information that women or girls are raping men in Yambio, this is false allegation people are setting politically against the government of Western Equatoria. Those are teenagers not women and we are still investigating because some of them are displaced people from Tambura and some of them are non-parental kids, these are all the information we are gathering together with the police inspector,” she said.
“We don’t want to encourage this false allegation against women and we want to put human right in place. There are some journalists in the State who are attached to the politicians and they just want to destroy the community” said Anigunde. She said as the State Minister of Gender she will not allow that to happen “because this is now politically motivated but we should stand for peace,” she continued.
Similarly, she added that the administration of Yambio State Hospital denied receiving such case of rape incident on a boy in the State hospital when the ministry sent its social workers to go and look for the claimed survivor.
“I want to be sincere to the public. This is wrong information against the girls and women of Yambio county, we have conducted some investigation about the boy who was said to be rapped, what we found out from the health department was that there is no such kind of case with them. We are keeping the children in a place where they can be Save because sometimes people might have false information against them and they will be harmed,” Minister Cecilia pointed out.
The Minister also blamed parents for not being serious on their children, resulting to such kind of badly behaved girls forming groups and involving themselves in drug abuses citing that laws and rules at all levels need to be strengthen in order to guide such behaviors in the community.
The official however mentioned that the teenagers are being cared for in the special protection unit in Yambio since investigation are still going on and they are underage.
Meanwhile Yambio town municipality Mayor His Worship John Mirihewari Singira warned the general public for tarnishing the image of the state where he dismissed the false information saying his office has never received any report of rape case in his municipality.
“I want to condemn in the strongest term possible the false information being spread on media that girls or women in Yambio are rapping men, which is not true. There is nothing that can happen in Yambio municipality without our notice. It’s those people who don’t want peace, they want to circulate ramous which can’t help our community” the Mayor condemned
He called on the media personals in the state to stop spreading wrong information to the public but to get information from the right and reliable sources because such information have tarnished the image of the state.
He said the information is not influential to the public because people of Yambio County are peace makers where he revealed that his government is working hard to find out the source of the fake information.
“We the government wants to know who gave that false information and the person will be accountable. I also want to tell the public that Yambio municipality is calm; people are only focusing on cultivation to produce enough food because if we depend on the issue of oil, other parts of the country don’t get the services so we need to focus on our own resources which is agriculture. The community is really trying to produce enough food to fight hunger in the state.” Yambio town lamented.
According to the State government delegation headed by the State governor Hon. Alfred Futiyo Karaba who visited the girls at Yambio police station said those girls are still underage, they are school going girls and they have no knowledge about the information of rapping a young boy.
The State authorities said they will continue to collect those street children and hand them to their parent in front of the human rights organizations in the State.
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